Barakus
Long before the Hyperboreans swept across Akados, a prehistoric people known as the Phoromyceaens dominated portions of the continent during the Age of Kings. While primitive by today’s standards, the Phoromyceaens were remarkably advanced for their time. Although many of their people still farmed and hunted on the land above the surface, they were renowned for building sprawling subterranean cities ruled by potent sorcerer-kings and occasionally priest-kings, many of whom refused to accept death as a predetermined outcome. To defy the constraints of mortality, these power-mad rulers became liches or another form of sentient undead. Despite their efforts to live forever, the Phoromyceaens disappeared from Akados at the dawn of the Age of Silence. One of their great abandoned cities, Barakus, lies beneath a network of caves in the Duskmoon Hills outside of Endhome.
Prior to 20 years ago, the Old Tusk orc tribe infested these caverns until Endhome’s military forcibly expelled the evil humanoids who worshipped the Demon Prince Orcus. After their removal, other monstrous denizens moved in to inhabit the cave system’s upper levels, though the “Lost City of Barakus” beneath the caverns remains largely unexplored and undisturbed. Ancient legends predating recorded history suggest great mysteries and treasures lie in the presumably abandoned ruins deep beneath the caves. Tales spread among Endhome’s academicians claim that a legendary magical blade still resides within its unhallowed halls, while logic would suggest its undead rulers may linger on in Barakus’ forsaken depths.
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